A safer, better way to share and evolve our thoughts.
What's motivating our discussions?
Are we losing our ability to learn from each other? Can we hear opposing perspectives without immediately dismissing them? How do we know what is true anymore?
The Internet's promises of open and free-thinking have fallen well below my expectations. Instead, I see a growing environment filled with hatred, divisiveness, and close-mindedness. I see inauthentic and advertising-driven content, popularity contests, and binary thinking.
I see essential and reasonable thoughts being censored and removed from conversations. Sharing unwanted ideas have erased people's careers and life's work. I see mob mentality, group thinking, public shaming, and virtual witch hunts.
We are all human, and anyone can contribute to the above issues. But sometimes, the platforms we use might be nudging us in the wrong direction, whether intentional or not.
I yearn for something better. I imagine I'm not alone.
Thoughts Welcome
It's time to finally create a safer community for all thoughts to be shared - where we can evolve our thinking by learning from different perspectives instead of fearing them.
We can take the time to thoughtfully respond to each other instead of reacting with our triggers and prejudices.
Where popular and unpopular ideas can mix and evolve. Where misinformed opinions are not censored and shamed but guided, kindly, with more information.
An ecosystem that allows our ideas to grow and change over time. Is that not what learning is?
A safe environment where we can express our honest thoughts appropriately without fear of losing a job, friendships, reputation, and more.
Considerful is my attempt at creating an environment that is at its core – searching for truth. A fair place for all ideas and thoughts to be expressed and to grow from one another.
Herein lies a glimpse into the ethos, motivations, and values behind its creation.
If you would like to participate in the early preview of this platform and help directly shape it, please join the waitlist.
Disagree with something I said? What's a good way to have that discussion? How can I learn from your perspective and you from mine? See anything working well out there?
Learn from the mistakes of the past
How many times will we persecute unpopular ideas and those that voice them before we notice this tragic pattern? Some of humanity's most significant growth has come from ridiculed people, often killed for the new ideas they stood for. Sometimes the simplest of ideas, such as treating people equally and fairly, have left people literally murdered. This is still happening today. It simply moved to a new medium and comes in the form of killing people's reputations and life's work. We can do better.
Popular does not equal true
Some of our most positively impactful ideas started highly unpopular. As time progressed, those ideas that once were thought outlandish became accepted truth. Simple truths today have taken far too long to be allowed to exist in our collective consciousness. Why?
Today’s online discussions encourage and promote popular thinking through like buttons and followers. Unfortunately, it is the default for many of us to follow popularity. It’s painful to do or think about unpopular things. Considerful aims to do away with all things “popular” — including the like button. Instead, we are more interested in uncovering unique perspectives that people hadn’t thought of before and helping those surface to the top.
Dump the peer pressure
To encourage authentic expression, people must feel safe enough to share their views regardless of what their social circles think. Unfortunately, we often fall into the trap of siding with a group, even when we disagree with them. Social experiments, such as the Asch Conformity Experiment, demonstrate this. Therefore, we must protect the feeling of safety from expressing our true feelings so that we no longer distort our collective understanding. Considerful aims to remove the peer pressure through features like anonymous posting.We can have difficult conversations, especially in times of fear
In times of extreme fear (you know what I mean), it can be even more challenging to have essential and triggering conversations. But that is the time when we need it the most. We all have unique insights to offer, but when our fear gets in the way of hearing those insights, we all lose. We need a way to make these tough conversations less threatening, less polarizing, and more helpful.
It's okay to change your thinking
You are not your thinking. You are something much more significant than thinking. Perhaps you've been taking your thoughts a little too seriously? Thoughts change and evolve throughout our entire lives. At least they do if we are learning. How many thoughts and ideas that you grew up feeling so sure of have changed over time? If they haven't changed, then maybe it's time. Perhaps this is the perfect opportunity to embrace new ways of thinking and evolve beyond your biases? The desire to show consistency with our thinking can lead us never to evolve our understanding. Don't fret. Nobody knows it all! There will always be more unknown than known. We need a platform that encourages the evolution of thought over time. Not just a platform to come in, voice your view, and leave. How about one where you come in thinking one thing today but leave with a completely new perspective tomorrow? That's considerful.
Become more open to scrutiny
A core principle of the scientific method is to be open to scrutiny and feedback. So instead of one or a few people dictating our understanding of things, we can get back to the basic principles that make science an excellent tool for uncovering the truth. Anyone should be free to voice their idea, while at the same time, many different groups of people can begin challenging and evolving the original thought. The more scrutiny the concept has, the stronger it can become. Not because the original author deemed it so, but because it stands up to the challenges of many different perspectives. Considerful aims to make this a central part of communication, especially at a large scale.
There are lots of thoughts out there
For any given topic, there might be a million thoughts around the world. Some ideas overlap. Some are brilliant and rare. Some people keep their opinions to themselves out of fear and anxiety. Some people have unique thoughts but can’t quite figure out how to express them well. Is there a way to take all these thoughts and help them mingle, evolve, and iterate? Can we find that incredible nuance in any conversation that propels the topic into unforeseen heights? Sparking millions of “aha moments,” “I never saw it that way,” and “wow, was I wrong.”
Care more about the content than how to discredit the author.
Too many reasonable and helpful thoughts are erased from existence by trying to erase the person who shared them. It goes something like this:
- An unpopular & threatening view is shared.
- Many people search for something "bad" about the author.
- The original idea is disregarded.